School of Hard Knox

School of Hard Knox is a just-published anthology of new short stories 'that break Father Ronald Knox's Ten Commandments for Crime Fiction'. The book is edited by a formidable trio of American crime writers, namely Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor, and is published by that redoubtable imprint Crippen & Landru. I am one of the contributors, so I don't think it's appropriate for me to try to review the book, but naturally I'm very keen to talk about it! For those who would like a more objective view than I can offer, I suggest Jim Noy's review on The Invisible Event.

I was first approached with a view to contributing to the book more than a year ago. I'm always grateful when editors think of me as a prospective contributor to an anthology, not simply because it's good for morale, but mainly because the theme of the proposed book gives me a chance to stretch my imagination in a fresh direction, and that's always good. Unfortunately, it's not always possible, because of other commitments, to say yes to an approach of this kind. For instance, I've just regretfully turned down another approach from a couple of pleasant editors I've worked happily with in the past, simply because I'm too busy at present and the deadline wasn't manageable. A shame. But I felt that if I could come up with a strong enough idea related to Ronald Knox's 'rules', I'd like to have a go.

Having the right idea at the right time is crucial. When I was approached, at around the same time, to write a story for a Beatles-inspired anthology, I thought almost immediately of a story idea inspired by the song 'She's Leaving Home' - and that will be the subject of a future blog post. For the Knox book, an appropriate idea came to me quite quickly and that meant the project was feasible. After quite a lot of work, the idea morphed into a story called 'The Intruder'. Although it's entirely fictional, the setting is inspired by the immediate surroundings of my house in Lymm, and that made the writing especially enjoyable. No need to go travelling to do the research!

My fellow contributors include the three editors, Frankie Bailey (whom I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time recently, when we were both waiting for a bus in San Diego!), Marcia Talley, Dan Stashower, and Toni Kelner. And there's a wonderful bonus at the end - a very enjoyable poem by Peter Lovesey, 'Knox Vomica', which is characteristically witty and clever. A very interesting project to be part of, and I'm grateful to the editors and publishers for thinking of me and giving me the chance to contribute.